


sometimes, when you’re drowning, the stick that saves you looks a little funny

by rudelithuanian



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV), The 100 (TV)
Genre: 307 still hurts, Clexa, F/F, QTWD fandom, Starts out gross, all hail heda lexa, also, fuck you the 100, i love love love clarke griffin, lexa deserved better, lexa is clarke’s soulmate ya hear me, lexark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:44:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6352135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudelithuanian/pseuds/rudelithuanian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>maybe, just maybe, this time, it is going to be all right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes, when you’re drowning, the stick that saves you looks a little funny

**Author's Note:**

> based on the Goodnight, Ambassador prompt — but only based, it’s not 100% fulfilment.  
> also, there are chances no one dies in this one.  
> maybe, just maybe.

_… ugh._

_Ugh,_ she thinks, heaving, feeling helpless.  _I’m never drinking this much again_ , she thinks, spitting out bile.

She heaves again and laughs through it as her nose continues to bleed.

She laughs and thinks, _ugh, stop lying to yourself_.

She thinks, _I need to get away from this stinking pile of ex-human flesh._

She is laughing and crying a little, and she’s got nosebleed, and her shirt is covered in blood and vomit from when she turned around too hastily. She lifted her head and turned around, a little too abruptly, when she heard shuffling right behind her. She turned around to see someone’s hand reaching for her shirt, and the movement made her dizzy. It made the heaviness, the weight, the lead ball in her head shift and propel her forward. She bent in half, and as she was bending, she tackled the walker, who was still leaning in (having missed her neck, or shoulders, her upper half), to the ground. She understands now that her momentum made her sway and bend in the waist and surge forward.

Her whole body is shaking now, from the strain, from laughter.

They hit the ground, and her body finished what it had initially intended to do.

She vomited.

“Right… Ha… Haa… Ahh haa haa," she wails, bile, and spit, and tears, and sweat, and snot, and blood, “Right… right in his f-fuckingh f-f… f-faa…"

Right in his fucking face.

That didn’t slow the walker down, no.  _But it was my moment of glory_ , she thinks and howls with laughter and hears rapid beating of feet on the pavement.

She thinks she feels her head bouncing off the vibrating ground to someone’s running rhythm, but most likely, she’s just imagining it. She carefully turns her head a little, groaning when she gets the venomous bullet of sunshine right in her eyeball, and sees Alicia running like mad.

“Ugh,” Elyza says to that, trying to get up. Her hands give out when she tries to push herself up even if just a little.  _Come on, you stinking pile_ , she says to herself.

Alicia slows down next to her, ducks down and reaches out to her, grabs her shoulder, takes her face in her hands, supporting her head’s weight, forcing Elyza to look at her.

“Handle with care,” Elyza manages, “And how about you check me for infection first?”

“Are you? Infected? Can you walk? Elyza?”

Elyza laughs (tries to, ends up moaning) and wriggles free.

“I’m not and I’ll try.”

Alicia’s breathing is still laboured from physical exertion, as Elyza’s was less than an hour ago when she tore herself out of her black, black nightmare overflowing with black, black blood.

“Get… Get up then.”

Elyza thinks about their discussions of safety measures all of which narrowed down to _don’t trust anyone_. “Wait, are you going to take my word for it? A, this is not how it —”

Alicia does not remember, no, does not _know_ any of it. It’s a good thing, because Alicia doesn’t have the habit of waking up crying and devastated. Sobbing and destroyed, thinking she has lost her again.

Thinking she has lost her again.

She has lost her again, and there is nothing, nothing that could fill the void where her heart had been.

And when today’s nightmare, the vision of the girl who had started coming to her months before they met, of the girl she loves, choking and dying and _looking_ at her, was overtaken by reality — Alicia beside her in bed, her back to Elyza, — it’s not relief that hit Elyza but panic. That, and pain, the residue of Clarke Griffin grieving through universes.

Alicia sighs but is visibly less tense now.

“Come on, get up. Those infected don’t usually laugh like maniacs, loud enough to be heard throughout the block. We have to get you outta here,” she says.

“But I was planning to lounge around… for… for a while, ugh,” Elyza grunts as Alicia extends her hand to help her.

Alicia looks at the walker and approaches him… it. _Remains of remains_ , Elyza thinks and snorts, cautiously testing her newly-regained balance on two feet. Alicia steps on the body’s sternum to keep it still, takes hold of machete’s handle and pulls. And pulls. And pulls. And pulls it out. She turns around, machete in one hand, and she is standing with her back to the sun, and she jerks her chin at Elyza and says something.

The words don’t register with Elyza, she feels nauseous and scared again. It feels like that moment before the fall, before you let go — you don’t want to, but you are _just_ about to, — like the moment when you know, mid-jump, you’re not going to make it, no solid matter under your feet, still in motion but already helpless. Elyza feels an unhealthy warmth seeping through her bones, feels this fervour-like heat ooze, hang around her like a halo, and she feels sick to her stomach, and she wants to look at her chest expecting to see a lacerated hole in her thorax where her heart had been, but she can’t tear her eyes off of the _Comma_ … _of head… heada,_ she thinks —

Elyza blinks, and Alicia is near her, looking at her, and then she’s at her side, gripping Elyza’s waist, supporting her.

“We need to get back to the house...”

… _Clarke_ , Elyza imagines and gulps, because, _oh_ —

“... and we need something to stop the bleeding.”

The girl dips her hand inside her jeans pocket, gets out a pack of tissues and hands it to Elyza who just hums her thanks because the headache is horrible. But at least, she thinks as she stuffs the paper into her nostrils and carefully tilts her head back, at least the drilling vortex in her head may keep her grounded from floa…

_— floating —_

… floating into yet another vision.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” Elyza answers, and, really, she isn’t.

“I am,” Alicia says and pauses for a second, but before Elyza can start spiralling down the _No. No. No_ nightmare, she adds: “I thought… When I woke up, I thought. Well. You were nowhere to be found —”

“A,” Elyza says, “You shouldn’t have come after me. Your own safety is a priority."

“I know. But then again, I shouldn’t have gotten attached to you to begin with.”

“I mean, I’m flattered that such a babe like yourself is worried about me, but —"

Alicia smiles a little. “Yeah. Keep hitting on me while you’re gross and smelly… And, Lex?"

“Hm."

“Stop forcing bits of your invaluable gloomy wisdom down my throat, will you."

 _Lexa_ , Elyza realizes suddenly.  _Lexa_ , she thinks and feels a bit relieved, feels the darkness pulsing in her temples fade a bit. She glances at Alicia, alive and by her side, and tells her about what happened. But nothing about why — “I ah wanted some uh some fresh… air. Yeah.” — since Alicia doesn’t remember. And yes, it’s a good thing.

“… so i just — i just —“

They’re both cry-laughing.

“What a bri… a bright idea,” Alicia struggles, “a d… drop-dead… strategy!”

“And I was just like,” Elyza imitates holding the handle of her machete to her chest, the point sticking towards the sky as she’s supposedly lying on the ground, “And the guy just… just impales himself, and we’re ahh-haa-haaaa we’re —“

“Face-to-face again?”

More laughter.

Alicia won’t bolt out of the house corrupted by pain and guilt, unable to look at the girl she loves, unable to touch her, afraid to stay with her.

“Elyza Lex…”

_— Clarke Griffin —_

"... the Commander of Death! Everything I touch dies. Yep. That’s me, mate.”

They’ve reached the house they are currently staying in, and are slowly circling it around, checking for any signs of intrusion.

“Not everything. Not me,” Alicia says, inspecting yet another booby trap.

There’s that smile, those eyes with infinity in them, and Elyza loves, loves, loves, and she’s ready to, ready to carry the dead weight, the memories, the knowledge, and maybe, just maybe, this time, it is going to be all right.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

Alicia shuts the door, then rattles it, testing the reliability of locks and latches, then steps closer to Elyza.

“Hey,” she says, “Any time. And… Oh no, no, no, nope. I’m not kissing you. Please shower first.”

Elyza does. She emerges from the bathroom, wrapped in an oversized bathrobe that belonged to the house owner, and gobbles the food waiting for her on the kitchen table, as Alicia puts down the book she’s reading to watch her.

“Wow,” Alicia says.

“I’m not that quick at everything,” Elyza winks at her, taking a sip of her hot mint tea.

“Wow,” Alicia says again. “I think you need some sleep."

Elyza does. She’s tired and hopes that she doesn’t wake up in another reality where _that_ one story repeats itself again and again. Alicia settles beside her on the couch, intending to read, but at this moment, she’s just looking at Elyza falling asleep, stroking her back.

“Thank you, A,” Elyza slurs, half-floating —

— _floating_ —

away.

“Rest well, Ambassador.”

Before Elyza can process what she has heard, before she can open her eyes, before she can exhale and take another breath, Alicia kisses her temple and adds, “So we meet again. Please rest now."

Elyza stops seeing the colour black in her dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> it’s gross, literally and figuratively.  
> written under the influence of Layla – Smokestacks.  
> based on the tumblr’s goodnight, ambassador idea (slightly tweaked)  
> (Ok but like imagine Elyza remembers being Clarke and is enjoying seeing the commander able to be a normal teenager and Alicia catches her staring at her smiling so many times and Elyza has fully accepted the fact that Alicia will never remember then one night they about to go to sleep and she whispers "Goodnight Ambassador”).  
> the title, ah, i wish i was the one who came up with this line, but it’s from a Buzzfeed article about a Backstreet Boys cruise (um… well… yeaaah… one can find inspiration anywhere)


End file.
